


Searching For A Heart

by littledaybreaker



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:55:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25442023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledaybreaker/pseuds/littledaybreaker
Summary: In which Kady reacts to and ultimately deals with Julia's pregnancy, and had a happy ending after all.
Relationships: 23rd Timeline William "Penny" Adiyodi/Julia Wicker, William "Penny" Adiyodi/Kady Orloff-Diaz
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Searching For A Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This last season of The Magicians was so jam-packed with chaos that certain things that deserved a little more expansion got pushed to the side, and this was the biggest one to me. This is my attempt to rectify it. I appreciated that we don’t really see what happens to Kady at the end, because even though this is probably not what anyone had in mind, I like that I can give her the ending she deserves.
> 
> Title is from the Warren Zevon song of the same name.

_ They say love requires a little standing in line _

_ Well, I've been waiting for you, lover, a long, long time.  _

_ - _ Warren Zevon

“Can we talk? Kady, please.” Julia was standing in the doorway to Kady’s bedroom in the penthouse, backlit from the hall light. 

At first, Kady doesn’t answer. She’d given everyone else strict instructions to pretend that she wasn’t there, or that she was dead, or something, and to direct all questions to Pete while she went to bed for approximately a hundred years. She had one of Margo’s Ambien on the side table, and a little glass of water. It seemed like a dangerous thing when Margo offered it, a landmine of sorts, but the idea of that kind of deep, dark sleep is seeming more appealing by the moment. 

“Kady.” Julia’s voice has that pleading, slightly whiny quality to it, and Kady wants to jam a pillow over her head. “Please don’t ignore me.” 

“I don’t want to fucking talk to you, Julia,” she says after awhile, realizing that she’s not going to let up that easily. Then, because that feels a little too open-ended for her liking: “There’s nothing to talk about.” All she can hope is that Julia can’t tell how close to tears she really is, that something else is coming through instead.

But Julia can tell. Julia knows her better than anyone currently on this planet. She folds her arms, trying, for Kady’s benefit, to obscure her belly from view. It’s not working, but even Kady can’t help feeling appreciative of it. “I know you don’t want to talk,” Julia says gently, “but I think it’s going to be easier if we do it now instead of later.” 

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Kady repeats, but it’s weak. If Julia isn’t going to let this go, she may as well just let it happen. “...fine. Come in.” 

When Julia comes in, she stands somewhat awkwardly at the foot of the bed until Kady sits up, rolls her eyes, and pats the bed next to her, flicking the lamp on next to the bed with a wave of her hand, so they’re both bathed in warm yellowish lamplight as Julia sits, first on the end of the bed, and then finally up next to Kady. “I feel like I should say I’m sorry,” she says after a moment. 

Kady bites her lip. The wild, angry part of her wants to tell her that yeah, she thinks the fuck she should say sorry, but the more rational part of her knows that Julia didn’t strictly do anything wrong. She’s tired of hearing it, but she knows it’s true.  _ That’s not her Penny _ . “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” she says finally, and for some reason that’s the phrase that unties the ribbon that’s holding all her feelings in, and tears roll down her face. Part of her thought it would feel better to cry, but it doesn’t, really. There’s no catharsis. 

Julia wraps her arms around her, just holds her for a moment, and Kady chooses not to resist. Chooses to accept this comfort and love from the only other real friend she’s ever had, no matter the circumstances. Even though it feels like now that she started she might never stop, and even though Julia--or at least Julia’s current condition--is part of the reason she’s crying at all, it’s sort of nice to feel as loved as she does, if only for a few moments. “I know,” Julia says finally. “But…” 

Kady finally squirms away, wiping her eyes. “I don’t want you to apologize,” she says, sitting up straight. Her voice is normal again, almost cold. “If you apologize it’s going to make it feel like you did something wrong, and you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m happy for you and everything is going to be fine, okay? I’m not fucking mad at you.” 

Julia looks taken aback, but she nods, backing off. “Promise?” she asks. 

Kady eyes the Ambien on the bedside table, then makes eye contact with Julia. “I promise,” she says, and then: “best bitches, okay?”

This provokes a smile from Julia, even though it’s obvious that she wants to say something else. “Best bitches,” she repeats, and blessedly leaves Kady to sleep. 

She’s not surprised that she dreams of Penny--her Penny. Of the things they never had a chance to do, of course, but of all the things they did, too. It all feels so vibrant and real that when she wakes up, disoriented, in the middle of the night she’s completely unsurprised to see him sitting on the edge of the bed. “Baby,” she says in her half-awake state, reaching for him. “Come back to bed.” It’s only when he doesn’t immediately move toward her with that smile on his face that she realizes, and her heart drops.

“Kady, it’s me,” he says. “It’s--”

“23,” she finishes in unison. “Not your Penny.” She rolls away from him, sitting up, suddenly furious. “Why the fuck are you in here?” holding her hands up, ready for a fight. 

He looks like he’s not really sure of the answer himself. “I thought maybe…”

“Thought  _ what? _ ” she demands. “That it wasn’t bad enough to hear it from Julia, so you wanted me to hear it from you just to really push me over the god damn fucking edge?” It almost feels good to be so angry, she’s almost giddy with it. “I  _ hate  _ you,” she tells him, looking him in the eye. She wants him to feel it. Every last bit of it--of her rage, her hurt, how much she fucking hates him in this moment. “I hate you so fucking much, do you know that? You took him away. It’s  _ your  _ fault. I could still hear him, fuck, I could still see him and feel him and you came and--” she’s shaking from the force of her anger. The lamp and the glass of water on the bedside table are shaking slightly with her, and then all of a sudden it all floods out of her like someone punched her in the stomach, comes out in a wave of tears. It hits her so hard that she curls into a fetal position, lets it all wash over her. “You have no fucking idea what this is like for me,” she says finally. He’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, keeping his distance, but he’s watching her. His hand is in the warm spot her sleeping body was a few minutes before, as though waiting to brace her if need be. “So tell me,” he says. 

She can’t look at him. Can’t force herself to make eye contact with the stranger with her soulmate’s face. But it relaxes something in her, so when she finds her voice this time it’s not quite as vitriolic. “It’s so hard,” she says after a beat. “I work so fucking hard every single day...no, I fucking  _ fight.  _ I fight to stay clean and to get up every morning and look in the mirror and decide I’m going to put my big girl pants on and work with you guys and with the hedges and do good in the world instead of relapsing or never getting out of bed or, God fucking forbid, just fucking ending this all so I can go be with the person I love more than anything in the world?” She’s trying to take deep breaths. He hands her the cup of water, and she drinks it. Midway through it makes her heart ache and she has to stop, handing it back to him with shaking hands and trying to wipe the tears away. “...Because I want to do something good in this fucked up world. Because I want to help people. Because I love my friends.” She runs a hand through her hair. “Because I want to be better than I was and than people thought I was. But it’s so goddamn hard, Penny.” She’s weeping again, and she hates herself a little for it. “I know everything is  _ profoundly  _ fucked up right now, but it just feels like...everyone just accepted that my Penny was gone and you were here and...everything’s been so focused on making everything around us okay that it just feels like I’m doing all of this for nothing.” 

He puts a steadying hand on her back, and she allows it. “Everyone cares about you, Kady,” he says after a moment. “Nobody wants you to feel like this. I don’t think anybody really...I don’t think anyone’s equipped to deal with this, but you can trust me when I say that I know that everyone cares.” 

She giggles a little, wetly, because she can’t exactly argue with that. 

“It’s easier for everyone else to just roll with the idea that I’m here because that’s all we can ever do in this fucked up world, you know? But I don’t think anyone expects you to be totally okay. If you need to let it out, everyone’s going to be there for you.” 

She hates that he sounds so much like her Penny when he’s talking her down like this. Hates that even though she knows he feels nothing--barely knows her--it calms her in a way only he--well,  _ her  _ he--knows how. “Stop touching me,” she instructs, and when he does she mumbles, “Sorry.” 

“No, I get it,” he assures her. “I get it.” 

She rolls over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “I hate her a little, too,” she says. He’s quiet, waiting. “It’s stupid because I guess it’s all just like...maybe we have no free will at all, or maybe I’m just being a selfish bitch, but sometimes I get so mad that she never stopped to think how it would feel for me to watch the only person I ever fully trusted, besides him, just... being with, having a  _ baby  _ with…” wiping angrily at her eyes. “...doing all the things I wanted so bad with a person who has my soulmate’s face?” 

“You’re not being selfish,” he says, laying next to her--in a bed this expansive, he’s still an ocean away. “Kady.” He looks over at her, waits for her to look at him. “You’re a human being. You’re allowed to feel these things. You’re allowed to be hurt. We both knew…” he trails off. “None of us are really in control of our own destiny. Things happened, and we both knew it would hurt you. We knew it was inescapable and unavoidable. And yeah. We let it happen because we’re happy, but I don’t think either of us…” He pauses, considers his words. “Kady, if we could find some way for both of us to exist in this timeline, we would do it. I know because he tried every fucking thing he could to make it happen. He loves you so much. As much as you love him. Maybe more.” 

“Definitely more,” she corrects. It’s a lot to mull over. He’s smiling a little at that. 

“He wanted me to come live my life here because I belonged to this timeline now, not because anybody wanted you to hurt. Not him, not me, and especially not Julia. He…” He runs his fingers through his hair, not sure if he should tell her what he knows from his time in the Underworld. “He knows how your book ends, Kady. That’s why you’re still here. That’s why you're fighting. Because he knows you’re going to change the world and then you’re going to go spend the rest of eternity with him. Okay?” 

There’s tears in her eyes, but she meets Penny’s, a little suspicious. “Really?” 

“Really,” he promises, and she can tell from his tone that he means it. He offers her the cup of water again, and she takes it, drinks it, and then hands it back to him, her eyes closed. 

“Thanks for coming to talk to me,” she says after a long moment of quiet in which he thinks she’s fallen asleep. “But don’t ever come in my room again, got it?” 

He laughs out loud at that. “Okay,” he promises. “I won’t. Do you feel better?”

She considers, eyes still closed. “I think so. Thanks, Penny.” But she’s asleep before he replies, if he even does, dreaming of her Penny again. 

It’s early evening when she finally wakes--she doesn’t think she’s slept that well in months--and when she makes her way into the kitchen the only one there is Pete. “Where is everyone?” she asks, locating a Red Bull in the fridge and opening it. 

“I don’t really know where anyone else is,” Pete says, “but Julia had the baby. Said she wanted you to go to the Brakebills infirmary or something?”

She just stares at him for several moments. “Pete,” she says calmly.

“Yes?”

“You are the dumbest person alive.” 

She leaves him to process this while she goes upstairs, throwing on the first thing she sees and leaving the apartment in a hurry, making her way to Brakebills as fast as possible. 

Penny is sitting in a chair in the infirmary when she gets there, holding a tiny bundle all wrapped up in a white blanket. “Where’s Julia?” Kady demands, and then realizes that this is a little rude, pausing, glancing at the bundle. “Uh...boy? Girl? Name?” 

Penny, fortunately, looks amused. “Julia’s just in bay four over there. It’s a girl, her name is Hope. You can hold her if you want.” 

Kady freezes. “I, uh, I’ve never held a baby before,” she admits, and Penny smiles. 

“That’s okay,” he says, handing her the baby. “Just like that, see? You can bring her in to see her mom if you want?” 

Walking slowly, like she’s carrying an active bomb, Kady carries the baby into the curtained off area where Julia is sleeping lightly. Hearing the curtain rustle, she opens her eyes, smiling. “Oh, you made it.” 

“Yeah.” Looking down at the baby. “Pete relayed the message.” She touches the baby’s face with her cheek, and she stirs. “And you did it. Holy shit.”

“Yeah, I did it.” Julia is beaming at them. “Can you believe it?”

“Nope,” Kady says, and they both laugh. She hands the baby over to Julia, giving her a hug in the process. “I’m so proud of you,” she says, and she means it. 

“Thank you,” Julia says. She looks from baby Hope to Kady and then back again. “Kady,” she says finally. “Would you like to be her godmother?”

Kady looks from the baby to Julia, then back to the baby. She thinks about the conversation she had with Penny the night before, and ultimately shakes her head. “I don’t think I can do that,” she says, “But I’m going to love her and teach her everything I know, okay?” 

Julia seems puzzled, but she doesn’t ask questions. “Okay,” she agrees. “Thank you.” 

  
  
  


_ A Few Months Later _

Things have been quiet in the apartment since they saved magic (again) and all of Fillory (for the first time). With half of them in Fillory, Eliot teaching, and Penny and Julia in their own house with Hope, it’s just Kady and Pete most days, plus whatever hedges need a place to stay. It’s calm, though. There’s the occasional blip, but for the most part, everything feels very secure, which is sort of unsettling in and of itself. 

On this particular night, Kady, feeling strangely wistful in some way she can’t name, makes a nice dinner for her and Pete, invites him to come sit out on the balcony with her. They eat, watch the stars, and drink wine until she finally gets to her feet. “I have a headache,” she tells him, “I think I’m going to bed.” 

“Oh, yeah, that’s okay.” Pete smiles at her. “I’ll clean up. Thanks for dinner.”

“Yeah.” She pauses at the glass door, a feeling she can’t name coming over her. “Hey, Pete?”

He stops picking up plates, looks at her. “Yeah?” 

“Thank you. For everything. I love you, you know?”

He looks puzzled. “Uh, you’re welcome. I love you, too, Kady. See you in the morning.”

That she does not say back. 

She wakes up, disoriented, feeling like she never slept at all, in some unfamiliar place. It almost looks like...an airport? 

“Kady!” She turns to the sound of a familiar voice, and recognition dawns on her face. It’s Penny-- _ her  _ Penny--wearing a suit and beaming. Quentin is behind him, smiling shyly. She waves at him and he waves back before she’s swept up in Penny’s arms. “When I saw you were coming today I couldn’t believe it. I could hardly wait for you to get here, how was your trip.” 

“Uh.” It’s disorienting, but she’s smiling. She can’t remember ever feeling this happy. 

“He made us wait all day up here,” Quentin says, but he doesn’t sound too upset about it. 

“Oh, shut up, it was only a couple hours,” Penny says. He’s got his arms around Kady, and she’s not about to move. “Your trip?” 

She settles for “like falling asleep,” and Penny nods, smiling. “Yeah, they said it would be. Figured you earned it. C’mon, let me show you around.”

_ This is it _ , she thinks. Penny 23 was right. She changed the world, she made a difference, and now she gets to spend the rest of eternity here with the person she loves the most. “Pete’s going to be okay up there by himself?” she asks. 

“Oh, yeah, he’s got this,” Quentin assures her, and she knows that he’s basically incapable of telling a lie, so she takes Penny’s hand. “In that case,” she says, “Lead the way.” 


End file.
